Britain has taken one more step in becoming a surveillance society with this: a "crime-predicting" CCTV that seems to be plucked straight out of science fictions:

Computers are programmed to analyse the movements of people or vehicles in the camera frame. If someone is seen lurking in a particular area, the computer will send out an alarm to a CCTV operator.

The operator will then check the image and – if concerned – ring the police. The aim is to stop crimes before they are committed. If a vehicle is moving too fast or slow – indicating joyriding or kerb-crawling, for example – a similar alert could be given.

Were those cameras privately owned or government owned? Private businesses have their right to monitor people going to and from their business for their own protection so long is it does not go too far such as cameras in the bath room.

When the government does it, it is like they are treating all people as criminals. As Briannanna has said, crime has decreased significantly since the early 90's yet we have all those idiots on the news saying the opposite and the politicians claiming video games are corrupting the kids and making them more violent. It is the 60's all over again when they claimed music made people do drugs.

I accept security in specific situations. Putting them on public streets is taking it too far. Just like the cameras mounted on street corners that will give you a ticket without knowing all the facts. Those cameras will get you in trouble without knowing all the facts.

I think generally people overreact to these kinds of cameras. Three years ago cameras were installed in an area near my house (my house is behind a bar, and there are a lot of bars on that street). In those years, yearly violent assaults on that street went from 105 to 74 to 41, mugging went from 35 to 15 to 7, and drug related incidents (whatever that means) went from 206 to 115 to 89. That's a large reduction in crime in such a short time, and for dirt cheap considering the cost of cameras compared to the cost of other police tactics.And what would I be doing on the street in front of a bar that I'm worried would be found out?

It's so easy to say "a little more is no big deal" but somewhere you have to draw the line. Government will always encroach on freedom -- that's it's nature -- but unless the people resist, it will eventually control everything. Each baby step toward that end may not represent much on its face, but the aggregate sum of all of them is what our forefathers called tyranny.

If this issue isn't worth putting your foot down, what is? What will it take for you to say "okay, enough is enough, I want my freedom back"? And how do you know it won't be too late by then? It's like the frog being slowly boiled alive: the gradual increase in temperature is bearable enough, but by the time the water does become too hot, you're dead. Should've jumped out while you had the chance.